Free The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

her head against her husband’s shoulder and marveled at the twists and turns of their life together. Even Faye, who now wrote fiction for a living, thought her real life had turned out much differently than anything she might have made up.
    She and Steve had met in a comparative lit class at Northwestern University in the late sixties, fallen in love, and married the June that Faye graduated.
    They started out normally enough; Steve went into sales at a large Chicago ad agency, and Faye, who dreamed of one day writing a novel, became a producer for a film production company. Like most of their friends, they juggled careers and the rearing of their children. They had three in five years: Steve Jr., Kai, and Sara—all of them now married and producing grandchildren, though only Sara still lived in town.
    On his fortieth birthday, Steve, who had been a lapsed Catholic since Faye had met him, decided to take a class at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary on the Northwestern campus. In hindsight, Faye should have paid more attention to this. But at the time it seemed a commendable use of Steve’s spare time. He’d downplayed the whole thing, billing it as an intellectual and spiritual exercise—not a second calling or the beginning of a second career.
    In fact Faye missed every single warning sign right up until the day, on her own fortieth birthday, when Steve announced his plans to leave his lucrative advertising job to start the Clearview Church of God and Television Ministry.
    Despite the fact that all three of their children were in college.
    It was, Faye thought now, a miracle that she—and their marriage—had survived the shock.
    Steve’s hand skimmed down the swell of her hip and back up to her waist in a soothing yet sensual movement even as Faye’s thoughts continued to center on the past.
    Overnight they’d gone from “comfortable” to strapped as they’d eaten through their savings to support three college tuitions in addition to Steve’s new aspirations.
    During those turbulent years she’d put her own writing dreams on hold to ghostwrite the two God for Dummies books and Rich God, Poor God, which had put Pastor Steve on the ministerial map. Then she’d used her broadcast background and contacts to help launch his television ministry. She’d done what she had to do to keep her family afloat and Steve’s dream alive. And found an additional source of income she’d never mentioned to him and of which he remained blissfully ignorant.
    Steve had never looked back, but Faye had. He’d wanted her on the air and by his side, a package deal like the Bakkers once were or the Osteens out in Texas were now. But while Faye loved Steve and her children and believed strongly in God, a public ministry and a husband who globe-trotted in the name of Jesus was not what she’d signed on for.
    Still she did her best. And when the kids were out of college and his ministry became both successful and highly profitable, boasting a facility with a 2,300-seat Worship Experience Center, full-service Starbucks café, childrens’ facilities, and film and recording studios, Steve told her it was her turn. That was when she’d attended her first Wordsmiths Incorporated conference where she met Kendall, Mallory, and Tanya. From that day onward she’d considered herself a professional writer even though it took her two more years to sell her first novel—at least the first work of fiction written under her own name.
    Steve’s questing hand moved beneath her nightgown, drawing it up to cup her breast. “I missed you,” he murmured against her skin, and against all odds, she felt the same shimmer of anticipation that she’d felt as a coed. Whatever they’d gone through, however their paths had diverged, they’d always been able to find their way back to each other. And they’d always been good in bed.
    “You haven’t said much about the conference. How’d it go?” he asked.
    “It was all right,” Faye said, not